Viewpoint: Ottawa-curling community entering golden era with Roar of the Rings

By Michael Sun

With Team Homan’s unprecedented year of success, Craig Savill’s recent international recognition and the upcoming Roar of the Rings in Ottawa, the question should be asked: has curling ever been hotter in the nation’s capital?

Ottawa Curling Club super-skip Rachel Homan and two-time Canadian and world champion Savill — who also trains at the O’Connor Street rink — have been making headlines on and off the ice.

Homan’s team – including teammates Emma Miskew, Joanne Courtney, Lisa Weagle and Cheryl Kreviazuk (who will be on the team for the upcoming Roar of the Rings Olympic qualifier) – took home gold at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts (the national championships) in St. Catharines, Ont. in February, and then went undefeated en route to a global title at the 2017 World Women’s Curling Championships in Beijing in March.

The City of Ottawa also honoured the rink’s achievements with a rally at City Hall in April.

Homan’s team then received the Ottawa Curling Club’s Distinguished Membership award, a unique recognition of their impact at the club. Homan gained further recognition when she was nominated for the international Sportswoman of the Year award by the Women’s Sports Foundation in August.

Even given Team Homan’s past accolades — other world championship medals and Scotties titles — the spotlight on this local women’s curling rink has arguably never been brighter.

Savill, meanwhile, was one of the recipients of the 2017 World Fair Play Diploma (from the France-based International Fair Play Committee) for an unforgettable moment at the 2016 Tim Hortons Brier in Ottawa.

Team Canada’s Pat Simmons and Team Ontario’s Glenn Howard were also recipients as they made special arrangements for Savill to curl the lead rocks during a match in a Brier tournament being played in his home town. Why was this moment significant? Savill was being treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and the act was widely hailed as a sterling show of sportsmanship.

By August 2016 Savill’s cancer was in remission, and he has made his comeback to curling. Fittingly, his next big tournament will again be in his home town with the upcoming Roar of the Rings contest from Dec. 2-10. Savill will be part of Reid Carruthers’ team from Winnipeg. The tournament serves as the Canadian Olympic trials for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and also offers a special opportunity for Ottawa curlers to try to qualify for the Olympics in front of local friends and family.

Team Homan, as defending national and world champions, will enter the tournament as favourites, but they will be challenged by fellow Ottawa curlers Allison and Lynn Kreviazuk on Alli Flaxey’s team from Toronto.

Savill is not Ottawa’s only local curler competing on the men’s side. Mathew Camm is part of John Epping’s team from Toronto and John Morris, another product of the Ottawa Curling Club, was recently leading a team from Vernon, B.C. as skip at the Roar of the Rings pre-trial tournament in Summerside, P.E.I.

The Winter Olympics could see yet another Ottawa curler competing for gold — but not for Team Canada. Ottawa curler Jaime Sinclair, eligible to represent the United States having been born in Anchorage, Alaska, will also be trying to make the U.S. Olympic team at that country’s pre-Games trials in Omaha, Nebraska from Nov. 11-18.